I’ll clarify so that I don’t seem to biased 
I also give big props to Tae Kim’s Guide to Grammar, as well as the 新完全マスター books!
1 Like
I used to make my own decks based on words I didn’t know when I was reading, but it was difficult because I ended up with so many, and I’d have to keep practicing things I knew. The intervals here helps me with retention SO MUCH more and it means the ones I don’t remember I get extra practice with, and the ones I basically remember after the first day I don’t have to do as often.
1 Like
I don’t know that there’s a single platform that’s going to get you to fluency or N1 or even to proficiency by itself. But BunPro’s probably one of the best, most well-rounded standalone resources out there and is under active development, so it’s always improving.
I think it does over-saturate you on certain things…like, I don’t know that I need to know every nuance of every vocab word. I also meet with a tutor where we review stuff from BunPro, and she regularly says, “Nobody uses this.”
You’re not really asking for a review, though. I guess I’d say that learning a language isn’t easy, especially Japanese. BunPro’s an excellent resource, but it shouldn’t be your only one.
1 Like
The Japanese language (like all modern languages) is not hidden behind any kind of paywall. There is nothing in Bunpro that you cannot learn for free elsewhere.
So, you’re not paying for the knowledge. You’re paying for the optimisation. You’re paying for all the time you will save not having to track down lots of grammar points or vocab lists. The time you save by having everything spoon-fed to you via SRS.
So, do you value your time or your money more? There’s no right or wrong answer - it’s a totally subjective question that each person needs to answer for themselves.
That said, given the thousands of hours of study a serious student of Japanese will put in over the course of at least half a dozen years, it does seem rather odd to quibble over a few hundred dollars.
Can you learn Japanese for free? Sure. But it means taking something already very difficult and adding an additional challenge on top of it.
9 Likes
That’s honestly one of the big reasons I decided on using Bunpro (and Wanikani for that matter). I know it’s possible to put everything together yourself and learn for free, but I’d personally much rather pay the lifetime fee and have everything already in order for me than spend forever trying to track down grammar points and configure Anki decks.
I know some people enjoy putting everything together themselves, but I’ve got a limited amount of free time and I derive no joy from putting study materials together. Bunpro is great in that whenever I want to study I can just open it up and start rather than feeling lost as to where to even begin
2 Likes
I don’t think you will find anyone saying “this one resource carried me all the way to N1” with a language like Japanese.
Bunpro does an excellent job with teaching and reinforcing grammar points. Less so with vocab but it’s functional. I would vouch for WaniKani as doing similar with Kanji learning. But then you’ll also need to practice reading and listening too, so that’s additional resources to look for (usually immersion). Technically you don’t need to practice speaking for N1, but absolutely should for learning the language anyway so you also need a speaking outlet.
You need grammar, vocab, listening, and reading for N1 and Bunpro provides I’d say 1.5 of those 4. 1.5/5 if you really want to study the language and not just pass a test.
In terms of cost Bunpro’s $5/mo is good value for money compared to other apps and even competitive with textbooks. In comparison Wanikani is $9/mo and primarily covers only vocab/kanji. Skritter is $15/mo.
Some people will pay upwards of $30 for one hour of private tuition. Studying Japanese at university can be even more. Study textbooks can be $40-80 each.
If you’re planning to travel to Japan a trip can easily be in excess of $1,000.
Take these numbers with a pinch of salt, your country’s economic situation may vary, personal finance might be tight, you might be too young to work etc.
Language learning can be completely free, however if you are going to spend money on Japanese learning then Bunpro is low cost and very high value.
A big part what made me stick with bunpro was also the entire month of trying the full version for free.
Coming from Anki and other “single-use” apps, bunpro can be pretty overwhelming and the usual 1-2 weeks of free trial periods of other apps (not just language learning) are not enough for me to build a habit or decide if its worth it.
One part I personally didnt enjoy in the premium experience is having to wait for membership sales, I’d rather have the same prices all year round. This also adds friction when recommending it to friends outside of a sales period.
One more thing I want to say is only pay for something based on whats already implemented and not promised.
I’ve been burned by Kanji Study promising SRS WAY back in the day and then continuing to add more and more paid “DLC”.
That being said since I started using bunpro last august the team has added the JLPT practice exams, conjugation practice and continued working on a bunch of stuff.
1 Like
Yes, I’ve read 0 textbooks like Genki, Mina no etc etc etc. 0. Couldn’t stand them personally and was too tedious to sit down and grind through those.
Bunpro teaches it in a way you immediately actively use it (forming sentences).
I passed N3 in 2024 and will likely do N2 this december, my only grammar resource is bunpro.
It highly depends on what is you want to use Japanese for.
I am not good at remembering grammar, but need it for obvious reasons, especially now that I signed up for JLPT. I tried different methods, bunpro was the most suitable for me.
Bunpro is good to force grammar points into your brain, if that is what you need. It is what I need.
Especially, when I type the third conjugation version of the same grammar point and get the message of “can you use a more casual form” or something along those lines, and I just want to chuck my phone out of the window and stomp around like a Gondzilla, that gives a lasting impression on my brain. Unfortunately that happens quite a few times, so many grammar points are associated with full rage in my brain…
Edit: I do not like the vocab feature though, anki somehow is more suitable for me when it comes to vocab.
Edit2: bunpro has a lot of features, grammar, vocab, kanji, reading materials, jlpt tests, so it is worth the money in my opinion and from what I have seen over the years, it is one of the most wholesome apps out there when it comes to Japanese language learning apps.
3 Likes
Bunpro works the best for my preferences. I started with Genki but found that it felt like a chore for me to read a textbook, so I kept putting it off. I tried a few other recommended textbook-like resources, but reading about grammar for chapters and chapters felt a lot less fun than learning it in a bite-sized way and immediately applying it/seeing examples. Bunpro works way better with my learning style (and schedule), and I do think making learning fun is super important.
I just use Bunpro and WaniKani for grammar/vocab stuff because adding in another SRS (Anki) would make me go insane. I also immerse with podcasts/manga.
I also spent way too much time in the first 2-3 months of learning seeking out what other people were doing to learn so I could do it the correct, most efficient way. It felt like wasted time I could’ve spent just… learning lol. But truthfully, there are so many different approaches that have proven to be successful.
Ultimately, finding something you’ll actually stick with is best.
Tae Kims was such a good resource, it helped my brain stop looking for 1:1s. When I found it, I was really frustrated with Japanese because of how duolingo was teaching me… turns out, translation without explaination isnt the best way to learn a language like Japanese 
(Im looking at you ですが。)
（読解）新完全マスター SPRUNG me into N4 reading. Now it all seems so obvious when before it was just a nonsensical mess 
Disclaimer: Duolingo was extremely helpful to solidify vocab and form my own sentences… so I still like it, but I got past the point where it seems human thought was put in. So for a while at least, I’ve opted out of the filler crap past score 60… @/ me when its a bit less of a slog 
OHOH! @kanjimoister888 you should get HiNative, regardless of what you choose to do if you havent already! Early on, even bunpro struggles to explain concrete differences between basic vocab points. But on HiNative you can get the “vibes” haha!
1 Like
You didn’t become proficient at any of the languages you speak via SRS, so why would it be different with Bunpro?
It took you 6 years to speak like a 6 year-old in your native language, 6 years of learning. No SRS.
No single resource can make you proficient. If they promise you that, they’re lying. It takes copious amounts of consumption of native material.
I like Bunpro because it forces me to learn grammar, something I have always hated in any of the languages I’ve learnt.
Have fun learning!
3 Likes
Bunpro is likely enough to pass. To score perfect in listening and grammar/vocab on N2, I had to supplement with lots of podcasts, 新完全マスター, Try! N2, and practice exams.
Reading was also not difficult as I had been practicing reading with children/ teen novels in addition to 新完全マスター読解, however I got hung up thinking about the weird wording on a couple of the questions (multiple answers seemed half-right) so I ran out of time on the very last question 
. The articles being deceptively simple in comparison to the questions is something to be wary of.
1 Like
Wanikani + Bunpro from zero to N2 pass on my end and N1 in progress.
Bunpro is, at worst, $150 for 5, searchable textbooks from N5 to N1 grammar.
Genki I and II is ~$100 by comparison, and barely covers N5/N4. Once you start adding in the other features, the cost of lifetime actually seems a bit too low.
The biggest Bunpro issue is that it doesn’t stop you from adding more and more to the pile. With 0 guidance and a default “learn 3 grammar” every day, basic math says you’ll be done in 300 days (~900 grammar points). That’s 65 days short of what the Japanese learning speed runners claim they can do! 
But you can cheat on the JLPT by using the power of vibes and knowing the answer is never どういたしまして！ Vibes is - if they ask a question tone of voice, the answer is usually not another question tone… etc.
3 Likes
If it makes you feel better, I would imagine this is likely the scenario for the vast majority of modern users who are starting their journey with 40000 learning options/paths available. Choice paralysis is certainly a major thing in Japanese 
We’ve added a bit more guardrails to this in recent memory, largely being a warning that shows to users when they begin to add more Items that exceed their daily goal. We don’t want to stop people entirely from learning more if they choose to (perhaps one day someone is super motivated to learn 4 new grammar points), but also we want to explicitly tell people what will happen if this becomes a regular thing etc.
There is also no real ‘default’ for users anymore in the reworked Onboarding when creating a new account - user will learn their first GP and then after that decide whether they think they could do 1 / 3 / 5 of those a day going forward. Still not perfect, by trying to hone in on avoiding scenarios like we’ve seen in the past where a user adds way too much way too quickly is one of our missions again this year. Little by little I guess 
3 Likes
Were you using reading or cloze style questions to get though n1?
1 Like
At that time there was only Cloze (and no Vocab).
Not sure what I’d do if I had my time again!
2 Likes
I never considered myself a speedrunner and did this just fine, but the thing is even if you complete Bunpro grammar in under a year you still need a ton more practice as most of the knowledge was still not really internalized and reading was fairly slow despite reading a ton of Manga and VNs and listening was just not there yet. I would not have passed N1 at the moment I added the last grammar point to the pile either way because my understanding of the grammar itself was pretty shallow and fuzzy and I lacked a lot of the higher level vocab having instead focused on immersion frequency. Add another year of several hours a day immersion for a more realistic pace of internalizing most of the Bunpro grammar. I would have been lucky to do N2 with a barely passing grade for everything except listening where I would probably (almost definitely) have failed, but it’s hard to judge in retrospect.
2 Likes
On my road to N1 I did all the grammar reading first, and now am doing Cloze. I think that’s making the journey smoother. But all the vocab I’m doing is reading.